The UN's top human rights official said on Friday abuses by US soldiers of Iraqi prisoners at Baghdad's Abu Ghraib prison could amount to war crimes.
Acting High Commissioner for Human Rights Bertrand Ramcharan said US-led occupation forces had committed "serious violations" of international humanitarian law in Iraq and had ill-treated ordinary Iraqis.
In a report for the world body's Human Rights Commission, Ramcharan, a British-trained barrister from Guyana and long-time UN official, also said coalition troops were able to act with impunity and urged the appointment of an independent figure to monitor their behavior.
In a clear reference to the Abu Ghraib incidents, since when several US male and female soldiers working there have been detained, Ramcharan said "wilful killing, torture or inhuman treatment" of detainees was a grave breach of international law.
Such acts "might be designated as war crimes by a competent tribunal", he added.
The only US soldier to face court martial so far for his role in the Abu Ghraib abuses was sent to jail for one year.
US State Department spokesman Adam Ereli declined to comment on whether US soldiers may have committed war crimes at Abu Ghraib and said the US believed its soldiers should be judged within the US military justice system.
Ereli said reports that US forces may have mistreated ordinary Iraqis were troubling and Washington would ask for more details.
The US has refused to sign a 1998 treaty creating the world's first permanent global war crimes tribunal.
The US was one of 135 nations to sign the treaty under former President Bill Clinton. But President George W. Bush's administration rescinded the signature, fearing the court could bring politically motivated or frivolous cases against US troops serving on foreign soil.
The 45-page report cited one former Abu Ghraib detainee, Saddam Abood Al-Rawi, 29, as telling UN investigators he was subjected to 18 days of torture at the US-run prison.
This included the pulling of teeth, kicking and beating and threats of rape, and warnings he would be killed if he told a visiting international Red Cross team about his treatment.
The report quoted Rawi as saying that he suffered physical torture when he was held at an Iraqi prison under ousted president Saddam Hussein. But under US-led occupation forces, he was additionally subjected to "humiliation and mental cruelty."
"The serious violations of human rights and humanitarian law that have taken place [since US and British troops invaded Iraq in March last year and ousted then President Saddam Hussein] must not be allowed to recur," the report said.
But the report, which asserted that "everyone accepts" that the US and its allies intended their troops in Iraq to behave well, drew criticism from Reed Brody, special counsel to the US-based Human Rights Watch organization.
"It seems very light, and to bend over backwards to accept the good faith of the US," he said by telephone. "I don't think it is the place of the UN human rights office to evaluate the intentions of a state or group of states."
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